Tel Beth-Shemesh, the ancient meeting point of the Canaanites, Philistines and Israelites. Tel Aviv University archaeologists are excavating the site, looking for evidence that it once was an ancient border.

Desecrated Ancient Temple Sheds Light on Early Power Struggles at Tel Beth-Shemesh. American Friends of Tel Aviv University, November 12, 2012.Holy Site Desecration Traced to Philistine Era. By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu. Israel National News, November 13, 2012.Israel Temple Discovery Shows War Horror, Ancient Border. By Gwen Ackerman. Bloomberg, February 4, 2013.Ackerman:We are
standing in the middle of Israel on a quiet hill overlooking a fertile green
valley.Some
3,000 years ago, this peaceful place was right at the center of conflict, says
archaeologist Shlomo Bunimovitz.“The
border lies somewhere between here and there,” he says, pointing to the west.
He is co-leading excavations which have found the remains of a temple which was
later desecrated and used as animal pens.This is
Tel Beth-Shemesh, the ancient meeting point of the Canaanites, Philistines and
Israelites. The Bible describes it as the northern border of the Tribe of
Judah. The area also features in the story of the return of the Ark of the
Covenant, earlier captured by the Philistines. King Solomon ruled the district
and it was the site of the battle between Joash and Amaziah, the respective
kings of Israel and Judah.“We are
looking for evidence that this was a border, tangible evidence in the material
culture that reflects this,” says Bunimovitz, from Tel Aviv University.The
excavation, just outside the modern Israeli town now called Beit Shemesh, is
investigating the extent of Philistine dominance some 3,000 years ago and the
impact its culture had on the indigenous Canaanites.Tel
Aviv University started excavating in the early 1990s. Bunimovitz says that
Beth-Shemesh may have been the first line of resistance against the
Philistines, the seafaring people who began to settle there.Philistine PotteryHe
produces plastic-covered charts that show how as excavations moved eastward, there
were less remains of decorative Philistine pottery and a complete disappearance
of pig bones.“The
Philistines wanted this fertile valley,” Bunimovitz says, “but had this pain in
the neck here at Beth Shemesh.”Before
the Philistines settled, the Canaanites did eat a little pork, he says. Then
they seemed to want to set themselves apart from newcomers and maintain a
distinct culture.“There
is a modern example of this, in the wearing of keffiyehs (headscarf),” he says.
“Israelis always wore them until Yasser Arafat adopted it. Now you won’t see
any Israelis with it. Suddenly the keffiyeh becomes an ethnic marker.”His
team has uncovered the outer wall of what they say is an ancient temple, with a
row of three flat stones. One was surrounded by chalices and goblets, another
surrounded by bones -- evidence of offerings to the gods or sacrificial
slaughter.Black LinesMost
interesting to Bunimovitz is the black lines that run through the hill along
the temple that has yet to be uncovered.“Normally
I would say these are destruction layers, there was a temple, it was destroyed,
and that’s it,” Bunovitz says. “But we ran chemical checks on this and found
out that what caused the lines was animal dung. Someone came and used the place
after the temple was destroyed for animal pens. We surmise it must have been
their enemies. If you want to overcome resistance you desecrate a temple.”There
is a possibility that the Canaanites living in Beth Shemesh may have further
evolved into being part of the Israelite people, he says. “We see a process of
becoming something not eating pig that will later become an identity marker of
the Israeli monarchy. This may or may not be an evolution into being Israelites
or part of the Israelites.”Beth
Shemesh later became part of the Israelite monarchy, although the Bible never
calls the people there Israelites, only the people of Beth Shemesh, he says.Pig BonesNeil
Silberman, a historian at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, cautions
against reading too much into archaeological findings. The absence of pig bones
may be an environmental issue, such as the climate no longer being conducive to
the raising of the animals.“What
is interesting about Beth Shemesh is the concept of it not only being a border
town between the Philistines and the kingdom of Judah, but also of the
inevitable tension between the two,” he says by telephone. “Archaeology is sort
of like Sherlock Holmes at a crime site: Unfortunately in archaeology there
isn’t an end to the process.”Lion Seal from Beth Shemesh Sparks Samson Discussion. By Noah Wiener. Bible History Daily, July 30, 2012.Does this coin found near Jerusalem prove that Samson lived . . . and that he did fight the lion? By Leon Watson. Daily Mail, July 31, 2012.Seal found by Israeli archaeologists may give substance to Samson legend. By Nir Hasson. Haaretz, July 30, 2012.Israeli scholars claim possible evidence of Samson. By Adrian Blomfield. The Telegraph, July 30, 2012.Beth Shemesh: Culture Conflict on Judah’s Frontier. By Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman. Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1997.The Archaeology of Border Communities: Renewed Excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh, Part 1: The Iron Age. By Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman. Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 72, No. 3 (September 2009).Canaanite Resistance: The Philistines and Beth-Shemesh—A Case Study from Iron Age I. By Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 364 (November 2011).Abstract:In two
excavation cycles conducted at Tel Beth-Shemesh in the early 20th century, a
scholarly myth about Philistine domination at the site during Iron Age I was
born. Renewed excavations at Beth-Shemesh by the authors dispelled this
unfounded hypothesis. In a sequence of Iron I levels, Canaanite cultural
traditions are dominant. Only a meager amount of Bichrome Philistine pottery
was found, and other items of Philistine affiliation are missing. Furthermore,
pork consumption was completely avoided at Beth-Shemesh in contrast with
adjacent Philistine sites. Review of geopolitical changes in the Shephelah
during the Late Bronze-Iron Age transition indicates that the Canaanite inhabitants
of Beth-Shemesh took advantage of their location at the Philistine periphery
and resisted Philistine hegemony. By denying foodways (eating and drinking)
that symbolized their new aggressive neighbors, the people of Beth-Shemesh
culturally identified themselves as “non-Philistine.” But since an inverse
process, by which elements of Philistine culture were adopted by Canaanites
living within the Philistine territory, is also evident, it is apparent that
whether adopting or denying Philistine cultural elements, the indigenous
population of the Shephelah changed its previous way of life during Iron Age I.